What is the most important thing I can say about teaching? Why do I like doing it so much? Teachers rarely receive any recognition, and we surely don’t make much money. If you go into administration, you are no longer doing the job you love.
So, why teach?
I can’t speak for everyone. I can only speak for myself. I teach because I am called to do it. Author Max Lucado once quoted a pastor who told him, “I only preach because I have to. “ Maybe that’s true for teachers too. We teach because we just have to. It is not a job, but a calling.
A calling demands everything you have within you. My best days as a teacher have one thing in common. As I am leaving school and driving home, I feel exhausted. But it is a “good exhausted” because I know I have given everything within me that day. What an exhilarating feeling! On a “bad” day, I feel let down… because I wasn’t able to give everything I had to share.
Never Boring
As a teacher, I am not just teaching. I am also learning. Although bound by schedules and routines, each day in the classroom is unique in its own way. Each morning when the children come into our classrooms, we are greeted with a promise that something special will occur, and it pretty much always does.
Consider this: teaching is an exchange of thoughts, feelings, and ideas. It involves expressing yourself through talking and doing. But it also involves listening and watching. That’s actually the fun part.
Yes, we are teachers. But the children teach us so much more… if we are open to what they bring to us.